Feel the Heat: A Contemporary Romance Anthology

“Now that is tequila.”


Jenn refilled them. “Tell me everything.”

Deacon hunkered down in a seat beside Harper. “Looks like you better pour me one too. Just ring up the bottle.”

DJ raised her hand up to a bell and gave it a good pull. The clang brought out a cheer and clap from the regulars.

“What was that for?”

“Anytime we have a bit of the devil in the bar, gotta make it known.”

Harper let the gold liquid slide down her throat. There was no burn, just the lick of good alcohol and the thrill of doing something that didn’t have any repercussions for once. She was on her damn honeymoon. If she wanted to get a little shit faced on the beach, she damn well could. She took another shot, grabbed Deacon by his scruff heavy cheeks, and dragged him down for a tequila soaked kiss.

When his tongue slid along her lips to gather the last drops, she let herself moan. This was exactly what they needed. She hopped off the barstool and wandered over to the retro fitted jukebox. It looked about seventy years old, but the guts were all high end electronics.

She flicked through the songs, smiling when Deacon came up behind her, his wide hands curling around her hips. “Are you going to cause a ruckus tonight, Lawless?”

“I was thinking about it.”

She rolled her hips under his touch as Elvis’s raw voice filled the bar. An old song from his ‘68 comeback special buzzed under her breastbone. She ground her ass against the front of Deacon’s board shorts. The proof of his deliciously proportional body rose up and pressed into her lower back.

The last time she’d danced with Deacon had been their wedding reception. And that day had been filled with friends and family pulling them apart every five minutes. Even her first dance felt like it had been barely a blink.

She spun around in his arms and grinned up at him as his strong thigh slid between hers. She rolled her hips in time with the thump, strum of the song. Elvis’s pitch perfect voice hummed through her chest and arrowed into her pelvis.

As the song rattled and shook to its end, Deacon dipped her back and laughed his way up her neck. His teeth scraped along the column to her chin where he laid a hot kiss on her lips. Public displays weren’t exactly Deacon’s stock and trade, but there was enough tequila burning between them, along with a long day of sun to make them both a little reckless.

When the song skipped to a chant-heavy Sting song, she glued herself to Deacon’s chest. Cocoa butter and salt swam in her head as he moved his hips in time with hers.

More couples came onto the dance floor until the postage stamp parquet floor was a mindless mass of bodies. As the sun went down and people came in to eat and drink, she and Deacon gorged on clams and tequila. They traded off with large glasses of water to keep them on the edge of fun instead of into sloppy and stupid.

They danced and they laughed, and she’d never felt more alive with her clothes on. When he dragged her onto the dance floor for one last time and a slow song left her arms and body heavy with want, she curled into his chest.

They moved slowly and in time.

There was a room full of people, but they didn’t matter. Only Deacon and his skin under her cheek mattered. The reassuring beat of his heart, the stir of his body, the bronze skin delight that was Deacon’s chest. All of it was hers.

And she wanted it to only be hers.

She backed off the dance floor, dragging him with her. “Home,” she said quietly.

He nodded and tugged her over to the bar. She stood behind him as he paid. Her fingers slipped under his shirt to the taut muscles of his belly and down to the double knot of his board shorts. The rumble of his groan made her bolder.

Beneath the line of the bar where the shadows lay, she curled her fingers around his shaft that had been half hard for the last hour. She smiled into his linen shirt covered back when he cracked his credit card along the bar top.

“Am I distracting you?”

“Yes,” he growled.

She brought her other hand under his shaft and cupped his balls. When Deacon’s entire body stiffened, she shushed him. “Now, now.”

DJ finally finished ringing them up and Deacon hustled her out the door. The dark beach and roar of the tide were disconcerting at first. It was only a ten minute walk back to their cottage, but it felt like an eternity of sifting sand and darkness. Deacon’s hand was tight and sure on hers as they trudged along the coast.

She twirled around in front of him and hopped up until she could hang off his shoulders. The music and the laughter of the crowds faded as he kept walking. She wrapped her legs around his hips and bumped her nose along his.

When he laughed into her mouth, she held on tighter. She rolled her hips against his warm belly, crossing her ankles at the back of his waist.

“I love you.”

Evelyn Adams, Christine Bell, Rhian Cahill, Mari Carr, Margo Bond Collins, Jennifer Dawson, Cathryn Fox, Allison Gatta, Molly McLain, Cari Quinn's books